It's the Iraq war, stupid.

Finally, Kerry is going for Bush's jugular on the Iraq fiasco:

In his most comprehensive and stinging indictment of the administration, Kerry charged that by nearly every measure, from attacks on U.S. forces to the pace of reconstruction to the training of an Iraqi security force, conditions in Iraq are far worse than the president has acknowledged. Kerry called the November election a choice between staying the course with failed policies and a change in direction that he said is urgently needed to prevent disaster in Iraq.

And in a campaign email, he said:

National security is a central issue in this campaign. We owe it to the American people to have a real debate about the choices President Bush has made and the choices I would make to fight and win the war on terror.

That means we must have a great honest national debate on Iraq. The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.

Now the GOP has already started counterattacking with the old "flip-flop" argument, but Kerry has got the right idea - there is no effective counter-argument to the central tenet that Bush has mismanaged the Iraq war and its aftermath. The American people know enough to know when they're being spun, and the Bush folks have been spinning so much it's quite literally making people nauseous. Iraq is a weak point if only Kerry and his team can force Bush to confront the fact that Iraq was a mistake.

Comments

[Jim]

David Letterman: If you were in office, would we be in Iraq right now?

John Kerry: No

"Knowing what I know now, yes I would have gone to war in Iraq"
-John Kerry

"I actually voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it."
-John Kerry

Whatever. At least Kucinich was consistent.

[Luke]

Bush (paraphrasing): "Everything's going according to plan in Iraq. Stay the course. Democracy is flourishing."

[Jeff]

I'm curious Jim, where did you find the Kerry quote, "knowing what I know now?" As I remember, what he said was:

"Yes, I would have voted for that authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout the campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently. ..."

As for the $87 billion quote, does it matter that he sponsored and voted for $87 billion where some of the money would be provided from turning back some of the tax cuts and voted against the one without?

These oft publicized Kerry flip flops aren't even really flip flops. The Bush ones, opposing 9/11 Commission, opposing his own and Rice's testimony, opposing Homeland Security, wanting Osama dead or alive to not caring where he is, etc. Seriously, reconcile this quotes for me and tell me that saying we've found the WMD isn't the biggest flip flop of all:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]

[Jim]

Speaking in Arizona on Monday, Kerry declared that “even knowing what we now know,” he would still have cast his vote in the Senate to authorize the Bush administration to invade Iraq. “I would have voted for the authority,” said Kerry. “I believe it was the right authority for the president to have."
-from the World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/kerr-a12.shtml

Yes, excuse my paraphrasing (of course you can paraphrase from the left and it's o.k.). He said know what he knows now he would have still voted for the authority for the President to go to war. This means one of two things 1) He believes the war was justified or 2) He thinks we should just make empty threats and not back them up.

[Chrish]

Interesting perspective regarding both candidates
and their positions on Iraq:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6066147/site/newsweek/

Perhaps if there were less Rathergate's, Moveon.org's, or Swiftboat Vets beating a dead horse and the so called news media started reporting on the "real" facts, the "pertinent" facts, and only the facts about both candidates
and their positions we might get somewhere?

[Jeff]

How about 3) He believes that when told that we're in dire straits and imminent danger as told by Bush, that the President should have the authority to act.

There's nothing in there about rushing in there without enough troops, money, or political support to keep the peace. There's nothing in there about lying to the public and continuing to lie to the public about how things are going. I'm not trying to bust your chops about paraphrasing Jim, but there's a real difference between giving the President military powers and voting to go to war.

I have plenty of criticism for Kerry on his vote as well... I think he was too cowed to vote against the herd. I don't want that for a leader yet, but I'd rather that over a liar and incompetent.

[Jim]

Why would somebody vote for the authorization of war unless he thought there was a threat. But don't worry he doesn't vote with the herd all the time. Believe it or not, I can respect someones opinion who is against this war. But there was no reason not to vote to fund the troops and for reconstruction. We all know he only did that to pander for the Democratic ticket. So Kerry either voted against his conscience or he has no conscience.

[Jim]

I guess there really are some good stories. Well if you listen to these Baghdad Iraqi's in their own words.
http://www.iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say, why not."
-Ted quoting Robert F.

http://www.quotes2u.com/doc-rkeulogy.html

[Jeff]

Jim, I agree that he was pandering to whatever interests with that vote. But on voting for and believing in the authorization and disagreeing with how it was used and whether to use it, why is that such a foreign concept?

Kerry's plan would have been inspections, process, allies, and last resort, war. Granted, he isn't very clear and is a terrible campaigner. Bush gave inspections like what, two months?

[Jeff]

Do you really believe Bush would do things the same way again if he knew everything that he knew now? Get real! The reason inspections were short circuited is because he believed that there would be gain without pain. We would go in and crush, Iraqis would give us flowers and reconstruction would pay for itself. It was a tremendous fairy tale no military person believed, yet he did...

[Jim]

Inspections for 2 months? Try 5 years. Those two months were just the last of many rounds. If Saddam had nothing to hide, then why were inspectors blocked from rooms and buildings. Why were they followed? Why were their rooms and phones bugged? Why did the inspectors say that the Iraqi's were so evasive and uncooperative? Why did they act so guilty?

Let's face it, when you vote to give someone authority, that's it. You can't give someone a gun and say "use your best judgement", then get mad when they use it. Well I guess if you're just trying to get elected you can.

I applauded Bush for getting the inspectors in there with the threat of force and U.N. backing. But what's the point of doing that and giving them two months with the head of the inspection team begging for more time?

Why was Iraq being evasive? Who knows? There are many theories on that. Saddam is in jail and his sons are dead... I'm sure he didn't plan on that either. Maybe he thought he could win. It doesn't matter. We wanted inspections, we got them, and then we short circuited them. Couldn't one reasonably conclude that Bush wasn't at all serious about inspections, but eager for war? What does it say when Dick Cheney tells Hans Blix that we won't hesitate to discredit you?

As for giving someone a gun and getting mad when they don't use the right judgment, that's really weak. I think police, the entire military, and people who buy guns and use them for crime... I think they're all on the same leash, don't you?

[jj]

NO, NO, NO! You pessimists have it all wrong! George W. Bush tells us that things in Iraq are fine and damnit, if he says so, then SO IT IS! And I don't care if he has been saying it for A YEAR AND A HALF and people are STILL dying in large scale! Things in Iraq are fine! Things are so beautiful, Iraq is a model nation for the rest of the world! Hell, France ought to take lessons in running a country the way Allawi runs it.
So all you doom-sayers, Democrats, and other weaklings, just shut up and listen to George W.

[Bob]

Iraqi Documents Show Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties
Scott Wheeler, CNSNews.com
Monday, Oct. 4, 2004
Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al-Qaida, to target Americans.

The documents demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.
Story Continues Below

One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al-Qaida.
Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States.

Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists. Zarqawi is believed responsible for the kidnapping and beheading of several American civilians in Iraq and claimed blame for a series of deadly bombings in Iraq Sept. 30. Al-Zawahiri is the top lieutenant of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the U.S., and is believed to be the voice on an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television Oct. 1, calling for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere.

The Source

A senior government official who is not a political appointee provided CNSNews.com with copies of the 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service documents. The originals, some of which were hand-written and others typed, are in Arabic. CNSNews.com had the papers translated into English by two individuals separately and independent of each other.

There are no handwriting samples to which the documents can be compared for forensic analysis and authentication. However, three other experts - a former weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), a retired CIA counter-terrorism official with vast experience dealing with Iraq, and a former advisor to then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton on Iraq - were asked to analyze the documents. All said they comport with the format, style and content of other Iraqi documents from that era known to be genuine.

Laurie Mylroie, who wrote the book "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America," and advised Bill Clinton on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, told CNSNews.com that the papers represented "the most complete set of documents relating Iraq to terrorism, including Islamic terrorism" against the U.S.

Mylroie has long maintained that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism against the United States. The documents obtained by CNSNews.com, she said, include "correspondence back and forth between Saddam's office and Iraqi Mukhabarat [intelligence agency]. They make sense. This is what one would think Saddam was doing at the time."

Bruce Tefft, a retired CIA official who specialized in counter-terrorism and had extensive experience dealing with Iraq, said that "based on available, unclassified and open source information, the details in these documents are accurate ..."

The former UNSCOM inspector zeroed in on the signatures on the documents and "the names of some of the people who sign off on these things.

"This is fairly typical of that time era. [The Iraqis] were meticulous record keepers," added the former U.N. official, who spoke with CNSNews.com on the condition of anonymity.

The senior government official, who furnished the documents to CNSNews.com, said the papers answer "whether or not Iraq was a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism against the United States. It also answers whether or not Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended."

Presidential Campaign

The presidential campaign is currently dominated by debate over whether Saddam procured weapons of mass destruction and whether his government sponsored terrorism aimed at Americans before the U.S. invaded Iraq last year. Democrat nominee Sen. John Kerry has repeatedly rejected that possibility and criticized President Bush for needlessly invading Iraq.

"[Bush's] two main rationales - weapons of mass destruction and the al-Qaida/September 11 connection - have been proved false ... by the president's own weapons inspectors ... and by the 9/11 commission," Kerry told an audience at New York University on Sept. 20.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's probe of the 9/11 intelligence failures also could not produce any definitive links between Saddam's government and 9/11. And United Nations as well as U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq have been unable to find the biological and chemical weapons Saddam was suspected of possessing.

But the documents obtained by CNSNews.com shed new light on the controversy.

They detail the Iraqi regime's purchase of five kilograms of mustard gas on Aug. 21, 2000 and three vials of malignant pustule, another term for anthrax, on Sept. 6, 2000. The purchase order for the mustard gas includes gas masks, filters and rubber gloves. The order for the anthrax includes sterilization and decontamination equipment.

The documents show that Iraqi intelligence received the mustard gas and anthrax from "Saddam's company," which Tefft said was probably a reference to Saddam General Establishment, "a complex of factories involved with, amongst other things, precision optics, missile, and artillery fabrication."

"Sa'ad's general company" is listed on the Iraqi documents as the supplier of the sterilization and decontamination equipment that accompanied the anthrax vials. Tefft believes this is a reference to the Salah Al-Din State Establishment, also involved in missile construction.

Jaber Ibn Hayan General Co. is listed as the supplier of the safety equipment that accompanied the mustard gas order. Tefft described the company as "a 'turn-key' project built by Romania, designed to produce protective CW [conventional warfare] and BW [biological warfare] equipment [gas masks and protective clothing]."

"Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended," the senior government official and source of the documents said. "This should cause us to redouble our efforts to find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs."

'Hunt the Americans'

The first of the 42 pages of Iraqi documents is dated Jan. 18, 1993, approximately two years after American troops defeated Saddam's army in the first Persian Gulf War. The memo includes Saddam's directive that "the party should move to hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia, by using Arabian elements ..."

On Oct. 3, 1993, less than nine months after that Iraqi memo was written, American soldiers were ambushed in Mogadishu, Somalia by forces loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden. Eighteen Americans were killed and 84 wounded during a 17-hour firefight that followed the ambush in which Aidid's followers used civilians as decoys.

An 11-page Iraqi memo, dated Jan. 25, 1993, lists Palestinian, Sudanese and Asian terrorist organizations and the relationships Iraq had with each of them. Of particular importance, Tefft said, are the relationships Iraq had already developed or was in the process of developing with groups and individuals affiliated with al-Qaida, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The U.S. is offering rewards of up to $25 million for each man's capture.

The documents describe Al-Jehad wa'l Tajdeed as "a secret Palestinian organization" founded after the first Persian Gulf War that "believes in armed struggle against U.S. and western interests." The leaders of the group, according to the Iraqi memo, were stationed in Jordan in 1993, and when one of those leaders visited Iraq in November 1992, he "showed the readiness of his organization to execute operations against U.S. interests at any time."

Tefft believes the Tajdeed group likely included al-Zarqawi, whom Teft described as "our current terrorist nemesis" in Iraq, "a Palestinian on a Jordanian passport who was with al-Qaida and bin Laden in Afghanistan prior to this period [1993]."

Tajdeed, which means Islamic Renewal, "has a Web site that posts Zarqawi's speeches, messages, claims of assassinations and beheading videos," Tefft told CNSNews.com. "The apparent linkages are too close to be accidental" and might "be one of the first operational contacts between an al-Qaida group and Iraq."

Tefft said the documents, all of which the Iraqi Intelligence Service labeled "Top secret, personal and urgent," showed several links between Saddam's government and terror groups dedicated not only to targeting America but also U.S. allies such as Egypt and Israel.

The same 11-page memo refers to the "re-opening of the relationship" with Al-Jehad al-Islamy, which is described as "the most violent in Egypt," responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The documents go on to describe a Dec. 14, 1990 meeting between Iraqi intelligence officials and a representative of Al-Jehad al-Islamy, that ended in an agreement "to move against [the] Egyptian regime by doing martyr operations on conditions that we should secure the finance, training and equipments."

Al-Zawahiri was one of the leaders of Jehad al-Islamy, also known as Egyptian Islamic Group, and participated in the assassination of Sadat, Tefft said. "Iraq's contact with the Egyptian Islamic Group is another operational contact between Iraq and al-Qaida," he added.

One of the Asian groups listed on the Iraqi intelligence memo is J.U.I., also known as Islamic Clerks Society. The group is led by Mawlana Fadhel al-Rahman, whom Tefft said is "an al-Qaida member and co-signed Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious ruling) to kill Americans." The Iraqi memo from 1993 states that J.U.I.'s secretary general "has a good relationship with our system since 1981 and he is ready for any mission." Tefft said the memo shows "another direct Iraq link to an al-Qaida group."

Iraq had also maintained a relationship with the Afghani Islamist party since 1989, according to the memo. The "relationship was improved and became directly between the leader, Hekmatyar and Iraq," it states, referring to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghani warlord who fought against the Soviet Union and current al-Qaida ally, according to Tefft.

Last year, American authorities in Afghanistan ranked Hekmatyar third on their most wanted list, behind only bin Laden and former Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Hekmatyar represents "another Iraqi link to an al-Qaida group," Tefft said.

The Iraqi intelligence documents also refer to terrorist groups previously believed to have had links with Saddam Hussein. They include Palestine Liberation Front, a group dedicated to attacking Israel, and according to the Iraqi memo, one with "an office in Baghdad."

Abu Nidal

The Abu Nidal group, suspected by the CIA of having acted as surrogates for Iraqi terrorist attacks, is also mentioned.

"The movement believes in political violence and assassinations," the 1993 Iraqi memo states in reference to the Abu Nidal organization. "We have relationships with them since 1973. Currently, they have a representative in the country. Monthly helps are given to them - 20 thousand dinars - in addition to other supports," the memo explains. (See Saddam's Connections to Palestinian Terror Groups)

Iraq not only built and maintained relationships with terrorist groups, the documents show it appears to have trained terrorists as well. Ninety-two individuals from various Middle Eastern countries are listed on the papers.

Many are described as having "finished the course at M14," a reference to an Iraqi intelligence agency, and to having "participated in Umm El-Ma'arek," the Iraqi response to the U.S. invasion in 1991. The author of the list notes that approximately half of the individuals "all got trained inside the 'martyr act camp' that belonged to our directorate."

The former UNSCOM weapons inspector who was asked to analyze the documents believes it's clear that the Iraqis "were training people there in assassination and suicide bombing techniques ... including non-Iraqis."

Bush Administration Likely Unaware of Documents

The senior government official and source of the Iraqi intelligence memos, explained that the reason the documents had not been made public before now was that the government has "thousands and thousands of documents waiting to be translated.

"It is unlikely they even know this exists," the source added.

The government official also explained that the motivation for leaking the documents "is strictly national security and helping with the war on terrorism by focusing this country's attention on facts and away from political posturing."

"This is too important to let it get caught up in the political process," the source told CNSNews.com.

To protect against the Iraqi intelligence documents being altered or misrepresented elsewhere on the Internet, CNSNews.com has decided to publish only the first of the 42 pages in Arabic, along with the English translation. Portions of some of the other memos in translated form are also being published to accompany this report. Credentialed journalists and counter-terrorism experts seeking to view the 42 pages of Arabic documents or to challenge their authenticity may make arrangements to do so at CNSNews.com's headquarters in Alexandria, Va.